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“I have no intention of usurping the Fendyrs,” Ithan said, keeping his gaze on the ground. “I only want what’s best for our people. I thought Sigrid might be … different, but I was wrong. I was so wrong, and I am so sorry.”
Sabine seethed, “Father, don’t listen to this trash—”
“Silence,” the Prime ordered, in a voice Ithan had not heard in years. He dared to look up at the old male. “I heard what you said,” the Prime told Ithan. “Over the cameras.” His milky eyes seemed to clear for a heartbeat, revealing a glimpse of the powerful, righteous wolf he’d been. “Danika did indeed guess at what you have told everyone. She suspected it, and asked me about it, and though I had long thought the same, I shied away from the truth. It was … easier to continue than to face a painful reality. To keep stability, rather than risk an uncertain future.”
The Prime took the sword Ithan offered, his withered hand shaking with the effort of holding the heavy blade. “I allowed our people to be forced to serve in the Aux,” he continued, looking now to Perry, “even when their artist’s souls abhor it.” Perry’s eyes shone with pain. “What Ithan has said to you is true. It has always been true, going back to the First Wars and the unspeakable atrocities our people committed on behalf of the Asteri. My daughter”—a glance at Sabine, who was snarling softly—“did not care to listen when I mentioned that the wolves might be more—better—than we have been. But my granddaughter did.”
The old wolf let out a heavy sigh. “Danika might have led us back to what we were before we allowed ourselves to be collared by the Asteri. I have long believed that she was killed for this goal—by the powers who wish the status quo to remain in place.” The Prime looked down at the wolf kneeling at his feet. “But it must be broken.” He extended the sword to Ithan. “Ithan Holstrom is my heir.”
Stunned silence rippled through the crowd, the world. Ithan couldn’t get a breath down.
“And no one else,” the Prime finished.
Sabine had gone white as death. “Father—”
The Prime leveled a cold look at his daughter. “For too long I’ve left you unchecked.”
“I’ve kept our people, this city safe—”
“You are hereby stripped of your title, your rank, and your authority.”
Sabine just stared. At her side, Sigrid’s blazing green eyes darted between the two wolves.
The Astronomer was now glancing at the distant eastern gates, as if starting to wonder if he’d backed the wrong horse.
“Take it,” the Prime said to Ithan. He extended the sword again.
Ithan shook his head. “I didn’t come here to—”
“I offered to make you Alpha once, Ithan Holstrom. I now offer to make you Prime. Don’t walk away from it.”
Ithan didn’t reach for the sword. “I—”
He didn’t get the chance to finish his refusal.
One moment, he was staring at the sword. The next, Sabine had snatched it from her father’s hands.
She plunged it through the Prime’s ancient face.
The crowd exploded into screams and shouts. From the corner of his eye, Ithan saw Amelie dragging a struggling Perry away, out of range.
The Prime crumpled to the ground before Ithan, eyes unseeing, coated with blood. If a medwitch got here soon enough, maybe—
Sigrid moved.
Ithan couldn’t contain his cry of dismay as she leapt onto her grandfather’s body and pressed her mouth to his withered lips. She inhaled deeply.
Light flared up through the Prime’s mouth, illumining his hollowed cheeks, and then Sigrid was breathing it in, drinking it.
His soul, his firstlight—
She cocked her head back and swallowed that light, his essence. Her skin gleamed as the light passed down the column of her throat, inch by inch.
There was no coming back for the Prime.
Sabine cut off his head anyway. The Astronomer, slack-jawed and sprayed with blood, had stumbled back a step, gaping at Sigrid as she leveled her green stare on him, ravenous—
Ithan had only a heartbeat to pivot, to leap off the stairs before Sabine swung the bloodied sword at him. He couldn’t take his eyes off the Prime, though. Off Sigrid, the Reaper he’d created who had eaten the old wolf’s soul, as hungry as a vampyr—
